I asked Mike to share with me the top four lessons he has learned about growing small businesses we’re not going to hear from other “experts,” and Mike was happy to oblige. Mike shared four strategies that he has found to help you grow your business exponentially, align with what you care about most, stop wasting time watering down who and what you are in a vain pursuit of dollars, and finally, earn much more money than you thought possible. As an entrepreneur myself, I found Mike’s tips right on, with a voice that’s fresh, unconventional and more “real” than we’re used to in the small business community.

Mike shared that business plans – while intended to provide important metrics to help guide us—in fact, create a static, unbending vision of where we should to head. This static yardstick then prevents us from the organic shifting and growing that’s necessary for small businesses to succeed and flourish. For example, one classical component of a business plan is your financial projections. But financial projections for a new company are “ludicrous” according to Mike. “If we could project financials accurately for a public company for even one day, we’d be billionaires. How can we think we can project reliable financials for a company that doesn’t even exist?” Sticking fast and furiously to your business plan makes you adhere to false tenets and assumptions, and that holds you back.

Another component of traditional business plan is your “dream team,” but according to Mike, that concept too is malarkey. You surround yourself with people who will support your vision, but in truth, these people have their own behinds to cover.

Thirdly, entrepreneurs spend their time trying to identify their “ideal target audience” and client, who usually looks just like them. But inevitably, if the business is growing authentically as it should, the products end up serving a completely different group that doesn’t resemble in the least the “ideal client demographic and psychographic” you originally assumed.

In the end, Mike asserts that business plans keep us from finding our true course, as we’re adhering to erroneous assumptions that prevent or block success.

What should we do instead?

a) Understand that business plans have relevance mostly to raise money.

b) Look instead at the core purpose you have in starting business – the impact you want to make. Express yourself in your business genuinely and authentically, and seek to have a legitimate and huge impact. Avoid placating others and buying into what people want rather than staying true to the impact you want to make.

c) Remember that your customer base needs to reveal itself to you, and then you must welcome your true community with open arms.

Mike shared that when he wrote his first book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, it was intended for male recent college graduates like Mike. But surprisingly, the book resonated much more with women.

Mike explained candidly, “Women told me that male authors on entrepreneurship were panderers and I wasn’t coming across as panderer. They said that I was ‘uncreepy,’ unlike so many others teaching these topics. At first I fought the notion that women were my community. My ego was so fat that I said ‘Sorry community! You’re not for me.’ I later had to admit that I was stupid. I realized that my real community (women) was emerging and I embraced them wholeheartedly. I love my community now. “

2) Successful small businesses don’t pivot – they ALIGN

Contrary to the view the small businesses have to pivot, Mike explores that idea that the pivot is actually an alignment back to what you were truly meant to do. What holds us back from staying the true course and not needing a re-alignment – “Error, blindness, and misguided assumptions.” How can you tell you’re on the right track? The community emerges and says, “Hey, you made the wrong assumptions!” Mike suggests that we do less pivoting and more listening to the community that is coming forth as truly needing your work and resonating with your authentic messages, products and services.

What is in the way of our successful alignment to the real purpose of our business? “Most entrepreneurs (and people in general) are fear-driven, uncomfortable to be criticized, and drawn to doing the safest thing, not to take a risk. But this fear leads to a watered-down version of what you’re trying to achieve, and in the end, this diluted version will resonates with far fewer people. Mike asks each entrepreneur to “Be the JOLT Cola for your industry! Forget the pivot, and align instead – be more of yourself.”

3) Bankers are anchors

Mike shared his view that bankers are investors – concerned with safe investments for their clients. When they evaluate a new business for funding, they’re looking for the safest bet, and judging it against what has historically worked, and has been proven to succeed in the past. The serious problem with this approach is that the most successful entrepreneurial ventures break all precedent. Fabulous entrepreneurial ventures aren’t pedaling safe, tried-and-true approaches – they’re breaking the mold. Basically, when a banker says “yes” to your idea it means you have an idea that everyone is doing already. You’re a repeat or a generalist. Don’t judge your own entrepreneurial idea by if a banker says ‘yes”. Find your funding from less constrained and conventional sources.

Mike offers his own personal example – “When I wanted money to fund my book, I wrote a vision statement for investors, and on it, I placed a yellow sticky note with the statement that read “No Dicks Allowed.” I wanted my business to be known for and characterized by genuineness and authenticity. No one involved in my business was permitted to be a “dick” – no vendors, clients – no one. My accountant, when he read the note, said “Mike, you can’t say that!” I replied, “But that’s who I am.” The next day, I received a Fedex package from one investor with a check for $100,000. The investor said,” I’m not a dick, and I’m in.”

4) Don’t ask for referrals from clients – if you have to ask clients to refer you, you’re not good enough

My favorite tip from The Pumpkin Plan is the concept that asking your own clients for referrals is awkward at best, completely ineffective at worst. We all know it doesn’t feel good or right to ask clients to refer you – it’s embarrassing and it feels like we shouldn’t have to. If we were good enough, clients would be automatically serving as our ambassadors.

Mike says we feel badly about asking clients for referrals because it’s wrong to do it! They’ll feel obligated to throw some name your way when you ask, so they’ll give you names of people who will make inferior clients.

The much more effective tactic is to reach out to the top vendors of your best clients, and ask them to meet to brainstorm how to serve your mutual client better.

Here’s how it works. Go to your top clients and ask for a list of the vendors they depend on most (these will be service providers who aren’t in your line of work, but who offer complementary services like cleaning, insurance, marketing, etc.) Tell your clients that you’d like to meet their top vendors to understand how these vendors serve them, so you can work together to serve the client better. Then call these vendors, and ask if they’d be willing to get together to brainstorm ways you can work together to service your mutual client in the best possible way. The client loves it, the vendors love it, and you love it. This approach comes out of your deep desire to be of service. In the end, these vendors send you the ideal new clients you want because birds of a feather flock together. It’s a win/win.

When Mike turned away from asking clients for referrals and adopted this new approach, revenues tripled in a year and he sold his business.

The Pumpkin Plan’s real purpose

Mike shared that unlike other authors in the entrepreneurial space who write their books to be a “hook” (telling half of what they know in order to tantalize the reader to buy their services), Mike “poured every ounce of my knowledge into this book, so people don’t need me.”

Mike is following his own advice and it’s working. He’s building his consulting business, developing systems and processes that can help thousands of entrepreneurs grow authentically as well. His goal is to have 100 people working at his company, feeling aligned and adding value to small businesses by easing the journey of the fearless, authentic entrepreneur. “That’s what I most love to do.”

How about your small business? Is it time to align, embrace your true community, and finally do what you set out to?